Two soldiers impressed to carry a wounded German officer on a stretcher
had given him a "joy ride," pitching him up and down as one tosses a man
in a blanket. "He was lucky to get off with that."...

"All _our_ men aren't angels," said a cheerful young captain back from
the front. "If you had heard a little group of our East London boys
talking of what they meant to do when they got into Germany, you'd feel
anxious...."

"But that was just talk," said Mr. Britling weakly, after a pause....

There were times when Mr. Britling's mind was imprisoned beyond any hope
of escape amidst such monstrous realities....

He was ashamed of his one secret consolation. For nearly two years yet
Hugh could not go out to it. There would surely be peace before
that....


Section 7

Tormenting the thought of Mr. Britling almost more acutely than this
growing tale of stupidly inflicted suffering and waste and sheer
destruction was the collapse of the British mind from its first fine
phase of braced-up effort into a state of bickering futility.

Too long had British life been corrupted by the fictions of loyalty to
an uninspiring and alien Court, of national piety in an official Church,
of freedom in a politician-rigged State, of justice in an economic